Turnpike memories: The bad and the good

So, given its current "pay-to-play" scandal (allegedly), the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission could use a compliment and/or another defense attorney right about now.

I realize the former won't do much to rectify their issues. Come to think of it, my shoutout isn't even for them.

Rather, it's for the effort their rank and file nobly provided the public 20 years ago this month.

That anniversary dawned on me while bound for home from the recent PIAA wrestling tournament in Hershey. I drove much of the state's same east-west toll road on March 15, 1993, three days after the Storm of the Century.

Those old enough remember the Storm of the Century, right?

Record snowfall from Canada through the Deep South. Hurricane-caliber wind. Scattered tornadoes. More than 300 deaths.

Yeah, that one.

My vantage point for that meteorological chaos was from a chain motel in Altoona. Ironically, I was in Horseshoe Curve country to cover another high school wrestling tournament as part of my former newspaper gig with the Titusville Herald.

I guess being conditioned to such white stuff didn't leave me as panicked as others stranded there. Once the elements were done with their apocalyptic wrath, I actually felt a sense of serenity and one-with-the-universeness upon fully taking in the landscape.

Not that there weren't dire moments over those three stranded days. My situation was on par with those plane crash survivors in the Andes Mountains who resorted to cannibalism.

(If you discount my access to standard food and shelter, of course.)

Sure, the motel's pop machine was functional, but it was out of Mountain Dew. I had no choice but to endure on its diet version.

And yes, my room's television broadcast cable stations. But only basic cable stations.

No HBO. No Showtime. No soft porn on Cinemax.

I know, I know. Real looking-into-the-abyss stuff.

It wasn't until PennDOT gave a green light for the turnpike to reopen that I truly appreciated the storm's epic swath.

I could barely see the Appalachian countryside en route home. Not from whiteout conditions, but from the unending two-plus stories of snow stacked aside of the turnpike.

Make that an immaculately clear and dried turnpike, the likes of which leave me sincerely impressed by its snowplow crews to this day.